We need another BPA study like we need root canal. For many years, hundreds (thousands?) of them have been published just about everywhere except on bus shelters, desperately hoping to find something wrong with the chemical, which is used to make a variety of plastic products, such as can liners. The studies are are mostly terrible.

But that hasn't stopped a Danish group from publishing a laughably-flawed paper on the chemical's effect on how fast rats swim, and similarly critical information.

The only thing "special" about this one, which was published in Andrology, is that it provides a nearly perfect example of the kinds of deficiencies that you can get away with, and still get something published. Some of this is painfully obvious to the point of being funny. Shall we look?

The paper entitled, "Low-dose effect of developmental bisphenol A exposure on sperm count and behaviour in rats" is obviously a fishing expedition: (1) Feed rats different doses of the chemical; (2) Accumulate loads of data; (3) Look for anything that is statistically significant, whether it makes sense or not; (4) Write the paper and pray that no one pays careful enough attention to see that it's nonsense.

Well, it is nonsense, and it's not difficult to see why. For starters, here are the dozen or so parameters the were measured in rats:

Onset of puberty, impact on the estrus cycle (as determined by vaginal smears), weights of 12 different organs (male and female) at ages 3-4 months, 8 months, and 14 months, histopathological examination of testes and prostate, sperm count, behavior in two different mazes, motor activity, preference for sweetness, and body weight of pups.

That's a lot of stuff to test. The BPA must have done a whole lot right? Well, not really. There were no effects in:

Body weights of male pups

Lumen formation or seminiferous tubule diameters in testes, proliferation index of prostate epithelium (no — I have no idea what any of this means)

The weights of ovaries, liver, pituitary gland or retroperitoneal fat pad in the offspring of 14 months old females

The time for sexual maturation of male offspring or the body weight at puberty onset

The age of onset of puberty of pups

Change in estrus

Behaviour in a maze test

Swimming capability (with some exceptions)

That's sure a lot of work to find out nothing. Did they get any positive results at all? This is debatable, and depends on your imagination. For example, here is something that is presented as a positive finding — the effect of different doses of BPA on the sperm count in male rats:

Is this really a positive finding? Those numbers look awfully similar, and they should; only one of the four doses attains statistical significance. That's the best they have? Maybe. Or not. This next one might be even worse. Does BPA make rats swim faster? Slower? Neither? I vote for "neither."

Once again, the differences between swimming speed at different doses is small, and looks random. So, it is unlikely that you will see the blur of a BPA-fed rat zipping up the Hudson River as if it had twin 200 HP Evinrude engines strapped to its back.

Saving the best for last, it would seem as though the authors believe that BPA makes females drink less sweetened water, which is an indication of ......... masculinization??? Are they kidding?

Once again, there are small differences between the controls and BPA-treated rats, and a less-than-convincing pattern or trend, so I wouldn't be investing in companies that sell rat gift sets consisting of a jock strap and push-up bra quite yet.

So, there's your study. Six authors, who knows how much funding from the Danish EPA, considerable lab time, and zippo contribution to the world. Useless.

Hold on. I take that back. This could actually help with a rather hot-button issue that we are now facing in the U.S., especially in North Carolina:

Finally, there's this: "These results suggest that the new EFSA temporary tolerable daily intake of 4 micrograms/kg bw/day is not sufficiently protective with regard to endocrine disrupting effects of bisphenol A in humans."

So, if I get this straight, these chuckleheads spent a whole lot of time and money trying (and failing) to prove that BPA is going to harm us, especially at low doses, and are therefore asking the Danish EPA to take some action. Sorry to inject some logic into this, but shouldn't you guys be asking the Danish EPA to raise the amount of BPA that is allowed in the food, rather than lower it? Maybe that's a silly question.

Dr. Josh Bloom, the Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Science, is a recognized expert on the opioid crisis and was the first journalist to write a nationally published opinion piece about the unintended consequences of a governmental crackdown on prescriptions opioids (New York Post, 2013). Since that time he has published more than a dozen op-eds in regional and national newspapers on different aspects of the crisis. In that same year, he testified at an FDA hearing and was the only speaker to note that fentanyl was the real killer, something that would be proven years later.

He was also the first writer (2016) to study, dissect and ultimately debunk the manipulated statistics used by the CDC to justify its recommendations for opioid prescribing, which have resulted in draconian requirements for prescribing pain medications as well as government-mandated, involuntary tapering of patients receiving opioid treatment, both of which have caused great harm and needless suffering to chronic pain patients. His 2016 article, "Six Charts Designed to Confuse You," is the seminal work on CDC deception and has been adopted by patient advocacy groups and individuals and has been sent to governors and state legislatures.

Dr. Bloom earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Virginia, followed by postdoctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania. He worked for more than two decades in drug discovery research at Lederle Laboratories, which was acquired by Wyeth in 1994, which itself was acquired by Pfizer in 2009. During this time he conducted research in a number of therapeutic areas, including diabetes and obesity, antibiotics, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, and oncology. His group discovered the novel antibiotic Tygacil®, which was approved by the FDA for use against resistant bacterial infections in 2005. He is the author of 25 patents, and 35 academic papers, including a chapter on new therapies for hepatitis C in Burger’s Medicinal Chemistry, Drug Discovery and Development, 7th Edition (Wiley, 2010), and has given numerous invited lectures about how the pharmaceutical industry really works.

Dr. Bloom joined the American Council on Science and Health in 2010 as ACSH’s Director of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and has since published 50 op-eds in numerous periodicals, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, New Scientist, The New York Post, National Review Online, The Boston Herald, and The Chicago Tribune, and given numerous radio and television interview on topics related to drugs and chemicals. In 2014, Dr. Bloom was invited to become a featured writer for the site Science 2.0, where he wrote more 75 pieces on a broad range of topics.

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"Big Fears Little Risks" is a documentary, but unlike most of what you see on places like Netflix, it is pro-science, and not scaremongering trace chemicals, food, or the modern world. We instead are going to take back the discourse from trial lawyers and the trade groups they use to profit from fear.

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